Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax (18 page)

I nod. If he’s trying to scare me, it’s working. I can feel the unease creeping up my spine.

“Okay, I got it,” I say, trying to sound more sure than I’m feeling.

“I am going to walk you to the door though,” he tells me with a firm look.

“Sure thing,” I answer.

“And good luck,” he adds as we get out of the car and head toward the building.

“Thanks. I’ll need it.”

**

“You’re in luck,” the receptionist tells me after I’ve given her my name and mentioned our earlier phone conversation. “Mr. Lake can see you right away. Just follow me.”

She heads to one of the four doors that open off of the small lobby area. I remember Jason’s words—these offices are relatively safe—so I follow her, taking a deep breath and trying to focus on what I need to say to sell my music.

I’m greeted by a hip looking forty-something guy--he shakes my hand vigorously. “Pax Reed, it’s nice to finally meet you, Blake’s been talking you up for weeks.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” I answer. “I really appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.”

“It’s no problem. What can I do for you?”
      “Well, Blake said you might be willing to listen to some tracks I’ve recorded. I wanted to deliver the demo in person, in case you had any questions.”

He nods, his eyes darting to a phone on his desk with all sorts of lights flashing on it. “That sounds good. Normally I have my assistant listen to demos first. She knows what I’m going to like, so then she only passes the good things on to me. But, since Blake’s already vouched for you, I’d like to listen to it myself. Why don’t you come with me and that way if I have any questions you can answer them right on the spot.”

I look around wondering where we might be going. He’s got a computer right on his desk and I’ve got my demo on a thumb drive.

“My stuff’s on a drive here,” I hold it up and motion to his computer.

“Great,” he answers standing from his chair and moving around the desk. “We’ll just head right down to one of the studios where we can play around with some of the sound. Gives me a better idea of what’s possible. He’s got his arm outstretched toward the door, and a big smile on his face. I have the odd feeling that I’m being hustled for some reason—rushed—but I can’t afford to piss this guy off. I walked in with virtually no prior notice and got an instant meeting with the president of the company, I can’t seem ungrateful.

“Okay,” I answer as I follow his lead. “That sounds great.”

While a lot of my goals for my life were learned watching my dad, my ideas about love all came from my mom. Tammy DiLorenzo Clark loves like no one else I’ve ever seen. She met my dad when they were fourteen-years-old, and she stuck with him through everything—being young, being poor, his alcoholism, the weeks apart while he was on the road, the constant stream of loud, dirty musicians through her house—drugs, groupies, all of it.

And after she had my sister and me, my mom poured that same kind of love into us. She’s intense, but you never have to question whether she’s got your back, or how much she cares about you. She loves fierce and forever, and no one better ever get between her and her family.

I remember when I had my first girlfriend in high school, I took her to Homecoming and right afterwards she dumped me. I was bummed, feeling used and worthless, when my mom came into my room one afternoon.

“I’m sorry about Julie,” she said, as she sat on the edge of my bed where I was sprawled, guitar in my hands, playing
pity me
songs.

“It’s fine,” I answered, my fourteen-year-old-boy scowl firmly in place.

“It’s not fine if it upset you.”

“Mom.” I rolled my eyes.

“Pax.” She rolled her eyes back at me, eliciting a little smile.

“Look,” she said, all seriousness then. “There are going to be quite a few girls who come and go over the next few years. I’m not dumb enough to think that you’ll end up with someone you meet at the age of fourteen like I did. But I want you to remember something. There’s a difference between
being
in love with someone and
falling
in love with them. You may find yourself falling in love with all sorts of girls. You might fall in love with a different one every week for the next few years.” She grimaced as if the mere thought were disturbing.

“It’s easy to fall in and out of love with people, Pax. It’s hard to truly
be
in love with them. And it’s only when the falling turns into the being that you know you’ve found the person who can last you a lifetime.”

I stopped strumming and glanced over at her. “I don’t get it, what’s the difference between falling in love and being in love?”

She looked around my room like she was composing her thoughts. “When you fall in love it’s that really great feeling, the tingles and giddiness, the wanting to see them all the time, wondering if they feel the same way about you, all that stuff.”

“Like a crush?”

“That’s it. What is a crush but falling a little bit in love with someone?”

“I guess,” I said, going back to my guitar playing.

“But, at some point, whether it’s after a few dates or a few months, or a few years, it’s just as easy to fall out of love. It’s easy to get tired of that person’s bad habits, or get bored with their conversation, or find someone else who’s prettier or pays more attention to you. That’s where the real challenge comes in. That’s when you know whether you
really
love that person or you were just
falling
in love for a while.”

“What’s the point of all this, Mom? I didn’t love Julie. It was just, you know, a thing.”

She laughed. “Oh, yes, a
thing
. I’ve heard about those.”

“God, Mom.”

“The point of all this, Pax, is that you have to try to look past the falling in love part and think, ‘is this someone I could
be
in love with?’ If the answer is ‘no’ then don’t be sad when one or both of you fall out of love. It wasn’t the real thing anyway, so it’s no loss. Because the real thing—when you’re truly in love with someone? You’ll get the falling in love part
and
the best friend part. When you really love someone you’re better with them than you are alone. Someone who loves you has your back, fights in your corner, and always makes you feel better about yourself. If a girl doesn’t do all that, then you don’t love her and she doesn’t love you.”

“Okay, Mom,” I told her, just hoping that the speech was over.

It was, and she left, and over the next few years she didn’t say much as I had girlfriends who came and went. My dad gave me the “don’t get someone pregnant” speech at sixteen and that was about the extent of his involvement in my love life. But as the years have gone by, I’ve found myself wondering more and more often if I’ll ever actually love someone the way Mom described. The way I feel about Carly is different than anyone I’ve known before, but even with her I’m not sure. It’s hard to know it if you’ve never been there before.

What I do know is that I want to be around her as much as possible. I want to do anything I can to make her happy. I want to hear her thoughts and know her dreams. I think about my mom’s test: they’ve got your back, they fight for you, they make you better. Carly’s shown she has my back more than once, and I know she makes me want to be a better guy. As much as I’d like to fight for her though, now isn’t the time. Now is the time for a thoughtful retreat, for getting as far away from her as I can so that she’ll be safe. It hurts my heart, but that better guy struggling to come out is telling me it’s what has to be.

Knowing all of that makes this moment at Five Star records seem that much more important. I want to feel like losing Carly had some upside, because right now I can’t see any. Not for me anyway. If I can get a recording deal, finally establish myself in my career, maybe it will have made all of this worth the sacrifice. Maybe not, but I’ve got to hope.

While my thoughts have wandered, Mr. Lake has taken me through a maze of hallways—exactly where Jason didn’t want me to go.
It’ll be fine
, I tell myself as we make one last turn and head for the very last room in the whole place. The door to enter Studio 10 is right next to the back exit, and as we approach, a bad feeling settles in the pit of my stomach.

“Come right on in here, Pax,” Mr. Lake says as he opens the studio door and insists I go ahead of him. The door shuts behind me too quickly for him to have followed. Before I can turn back to see where he went, a sound makes me pivot to my right and I find the barrel of the gun pointed at my face.

“It’s good to see you, kid,” Nicky smirks as he grabs my arm and pulls me deeper into the room. It’s a standard recording studio setup, like the ones I grew up around—a small producer’s space that we’re in, and a recording space beyond a thick glass wall.

“Have a seat,” Nicky instructs, shoving me into a rolling chair in front of the mixing panel.

I decide silence is my best tactic right now, so I sit, folding my arms and looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

He waves the gun around as he talks, but while it’s intimidating, I know he’s got too much experience to set the thing off unless he really means to.

“Did you miss me?” he asks, grinning.

I sigh and lean back a little more in the chair. “What do you want?”

He ignores my question and gestures to the recording space. “You ever been in one of these places before?”

“Maybe,” I answer.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you have. I’ll bet you’ve seen the inside of one of these places more times than you can count.”

I shrug, refusing to give him the satisfaction of an answer.

“And see, that’s what I want. I want the guy who knows the inside of one of these rooms like the back of his hand, because that guy? That guy’s daddy has a whole bunch of money, and I’m sure he’d pay lots to make sure you’re safe and sound.”

Even though it was obvious that Lagazo had figured out who I was, it still stings to hear it, and it makes my pulse rate jump, because I’m about to be kidnapped, and that might very well be the end of me.

I swallow and still refuse to give Nicky a response.

“I’ve got an idea, let’s send daddy a little recording. That way he’ll know your alive and well, and just waiting for him to cough up the cash to release you.”
      “How do you know he even cares? I mean I’m living on the other side of the country with a different last name, that should be your clue that we’re not real close.”

I clench my teeth together and hope that my bluff works. It’s a
Hail Mary
, but I don’t have much to lose, and if I stall long enough maybe Jason will realize something’s off and come looking for me.

Nicky leans down in my face, his hot breath pouring over my skin until I want to vomit on him.

“Do you think I’m an idiot, kid? You think we haven’t checked you out so thoroughly we know more about you than you do?”

I grimace as he steps back. “How’s your sister by the way? She feeling better after that little slide she took down the coast highway?”

I lunge for him, no longer caring that he’s got a damn gun in his hand. My head and hands hit his chest hard and he goes sprawling across the floor. The impact should have knocked the gun out of his hand, but he’s got a tight grip on it and as I land with a knee in his chest ready to start throwing punches, he brings the cold metal up to my chest and cocks the hammer back.

“That was really stupid,” he snarls.

I lean away from him, hands up beside my head and slowly climb off of his prone body.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” I warn, as he stands, rolling his shoulders and still pointing the gun at me.

“And you just made it all a lot tougher on yourself. He shoves me hard toward the door to the recording area. “Go on, there’s a script waiting for you. Read it into the mic, and then we’ve got other places to be.”

**

Those final few minutes at Five Star records will always be a blur to me. I’ve never seen gunfire much less been in the midst of it. After I recorded the message to my parents Nicky took me out the back of the building where a car was waiting for us. Jason was waiting for us as well, and shots were exchanged, but I think Jason was limited in what he could do because he didn’t want to kill me in the process. He fired off a couple of rounds at the tires of the car while Nicky fired off rounds at him. Somehow, we drove the car anyway, and I watched my last chance at a rescue fade out the back window as we squealed out of the parking lot.

I’ve been tied up and locked in a dark closet for what seems like days although I’m sure it’s only been hours. It’s musty and the concrete floor is cold, but in the grand scheme of things it could be worse. The worst part is the silence. I haven’t heard a thing since they tossed me in here and it’s starting to make me nervous.

No matter what, my dad should be in town by now, and that means he should have gotten the ransom demands along with the recording they had me make. It’s killing me to think about what they might be asking for and how much of a burden it could be for him. My parents are rich, I know this, but I don’t really have any idea of their net worth. Maybe it’s not that easy for them to come up with several hundred thousand dollars on the fly. Maybe Lagazo’s gotten really greedy and is asking for several million. Could my dad produce that? I’m not sure.

I try to think of the positive in my situation as I tug and stretch the ropes around my wrists. With all this effort going into me, Carly’s got to be safe, I tell myself. I’m sure Vaughn and his mom have the police involved and Carly’s safe and recovering in the hospital like she should be. That’s what’s going to get me through this, knowing that Carly is getting well, and going back to Portland with Vaughn. She’ll be happy there. She can get a fresh start, have family around her, and live like a normal eighteen-year-old. If it takes me being kidnapped to get that chance for her, then I don’t mind. I really don’t.

The ropes are cutting into my skin now, so I stop tugging and give my wrists a rest.

The door flies open and slams against the wall with an explosion of sound. It must be very thick for me not to have heard anyone approaching before it opened.